It’s been a busy week for me what with the foilage trip to NW Arkansas and an excursion to SE Oklahoma to eat at the iconic Roseanna’s Italian Cafe in Krebs, Oklahoma– plus my once a month cancer blood lab and treatment week…but I’ve been watching the games at both the NBA and college level during the interim.
It’s way too early to make any real judgements at the college level, but at the NBA level it’s pretty much following the script I thought it would in the Western Conference. 1 OKC, 2 Denver, and 3 Houston–if they can locate a point guard replacement for Fred van Fleet. Then depending on the breaks of the season injury-wise and such… 4a San Antonio or 4b Minnesota with a healthy Anthony Edwards.
In no way do I think Golden State has the current roster to win the West, but as they showed last night on the second night of a back to back in San Antonio they still have No. 30 on their roster. Despite being absolutely shut down down the night before in OKC by a defense which was missing JDub, Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and the defensively versatile Kenrich Williams–Steph is still capable of going off against anybody in the league on those nights his worn out body allows him to do so.
Steph dropped 46 pts last night as the Warriors upset the young San Antonio Spurs by a count of 125-120 to improve to 7-6 on the season. But unless Johnny Kuminga starts showing me something on a more consistent basis I can’t put much more faith in the Warriors than a finish somewhere between 6th or 7th in the West. There will be nights when Steph looks like he did in OKC on Tuesday night versus the Thunder, but that’s not enough in the stacked West.
Nikola, from my view, came into camp heavy, slow, and out of shape. That has been taken care of and he now appears to be in form to play the kind of ball we expect from him in the NBA blogging world.
Denver’s other guys will need to incrementally get it together as the season moves along and figure out a way to be a better overall defensive team if they aspire to dethrone the Thunder.
Back to the Warriors for a second though…Johnny Kuminga…it’s time, like Peyton Watson with the Denver Nuggets, who wasn’t given an extension—it’s time for you to figure out the NBA game and move beyond neighborhood gym pickup level of play. Let’s go, buddy. Pick it up.
Back to the OKC-Denver thoughts…point blank from me is the Thunder without JDub playing a single game to date is the defending champ and by far the best defensive team in the league. The ascension of both Ajay Mitchell and Aaron Wiggins’ games has me wondering how in the world Coach Mark is going to make all these guys happy with minutes if the Thunder ever get fully healthy.
A helmet sticker to Isaiah Hartenstein for his excellent play this past week and his off the court award he won from the NBA for being a tremendous overall human being to the Oklahoma City community beyond the basketball court. MJ fell in love with Isaiah when that ten year-old Archie ran over to him in the championship parade. Hope Sam Presti figures out a way to keep Isaiah beyond this season with the 2nd apron looming.
Below…Isaiah presser after his career double, double game versus the Sacramento Kings.
As far as the Lakers without LeBron…as we witnessed last night, and even though I love Austin Reaves like a favorite uncle–the Lakers without LeBron aren’t all that much.
In closing..if you picked the Detroit Pistons to be in or near first in the East then you must be a ‘serious’ okcthunderground.com reader. I’m not picking the Pistons to win the East just yet because of their youth, but with Cade Cunningham showing the basketball world what he’s capaable of becoming–you doubters can understand why I had a Cade Cunningham Journal his lone college season at O State even though I bleed crimsom.
Which brings me to OU at Alabama on Saturday at 2:30pm on ABC…you guys better leave that slow start and penalties back in Knoxville if you want to improve to 8-2 with a serious chance to participate in the College Football Playoff.
Boomer!
Eternal peace.
MJ